“Mainly, it is simply not being enforced,” he wrote in a letter to Mayor Marty Blum.

“As a frequent walker, I am painfully aware of this fact,” Brilliant said. “And people who know I was a leader in the initiative campaign are also constantly reminding me of it (which of course is even more painful).” The fact that the city opposed the initiative may or may not be a factor here.

Tell me about it, Ashleigh. Neighbors tell me that at least three nearby homeowners hire gardeners who use these illegal dirt blowers.

The problem is not just gas blowers blasting away and polluting, but that legal electric ones are not really cleaning up, but often just blowing debris from one home to another. One of my neighbors got irate because dirt was being blown into her driveway. At our house, Sue sweeps up the debris, much of it washed down the gutter from above, and picks it up.

“I apologize for troubling you with this matter when there are so many more dire problems confronting you and the city, but there seems to be no alternative,” Brilliant wrote. “We who worked so hard to secure this law have in the past tried conferring with the police department and we received various assurances, but today the situation seems to be out of control.”

“We have found that the chances of calling the police against any particular offender and getting any satisfaction are extremely small. But there are now so many offenders that nailing one hardly makes any difference anyway.

“In any case, we feel that this should not have to be a police matter. And I personally would like to suggest that, with your backing, there are some simple pieces of literature which, at a very small cost to the city, would go far towards solving this problem:”

(1) A simple statement of the law and the penalties for breaking it, which can be distributed to concerned citizens and handed directly by them to offenders.

(2) A notice directed at homeowners and others who employ gardeners, which can be left by concerned citizens, or by the police, at homes or businesses on whose property or by whose employees, the law is observed to have been being broken.

(3) A notice to be placed at all places where gardening machines are sold or serviced, and communicated to all local gardening and landscaping services, clearly stating the fact that the use of gas-powered leaf blowers is not permitted at any time in this city.

(4) Announcements in the local media reminding people of the law and telling them how they can secure copies of the above notices.

Max Factor’s Son: Mark Barry Factor, son of the late cosmetics king, died at Devereux School in Goleta, where he was a resident for many years. He was 68.

Reagan GOP Country?: In spite of what the New York Daily News thinks, Santa Barbara is not “Reagan Republican country.” It’s solid DemoLand, as proved in recent elections, which elected an all-Democratic City Council.

Wrote the NYDN; “Oprah’s ensconced in the middle of Reagan Republican country, near Santa Barbara, but there was no shortage of requests to meet the ‘rock star’ of the presidential campaign and peekaboo Oprah’ digs as a bonus.” That’s referring to Oprah’s upcoming fund-raiser for Barack Obama. (Has my invitation been lost in the mail, or trapped in an e-mail vortex?)

Barney Brantingham can be reached at barney@independent.com or 805-965-5205. He writes online columns on Tuesdays and Fridays and a print column on Thursdays.

Yes, electric blowers are just as stupid as fuel-powered (usually a mix of oil and gasoline) blowers, and that is an irony if not loophole in the local ordinance. The City put that on the ballot in 1997, apparently because they were afraid of enacting an actual ordinance then.

I have called the police dispatch many times to report these illegal blowers. The police dispatchers dutifully record the report about who and where, and the police actually do come to investigate the blowers, Whether one likes that or not, I cannot imagine anything that would be a lower priority for police actions. Seldom have the blower and its operator actually still been there when the cops finally arrive.

In addition to all the education and outreach suggested here by Ashleigh Brilliant, a far more effective legal mechanism should be to cite the client of the blowers in addition to the operator. Of course, that would require witnesses and testimony etc., likely to cause discord among neighbors etc. That probably was debated when the intiail City Ordinance passed 10 years ago via a Ballot Measure.

Ralphs market downtown recently has hired (or still does) a "landscaping" company that sent its worker into the car lot to blow around the dust along the car lot curbs at night As no amount of dirt or dust was there beyond basic background levels, and certainly no leaves were there, the worker simply just trying to look busy while he polluted Santa Barbara with 90 dB noise and spewed a toxic cloud of smog. (2-stroke engines of and oil and gasoline mix produce as much smog as 10 or so modern automobiles combined).

In that experience, at Ralphs downtown, the worker there, at Ralphs downtown, become highly agitated when I informed him that such blowers were illegal in the City, at Ralphs downtown. He then mumbled something about how his Company, hired by Ralphs downtown, tells him to do it.

Such is the typical reaction from hired workers who operate the fuel-powered blowers, even though most pretend not to understand plain speaking to inform them about how such blowers are illegal in Santa Barbara.

And, yes, I do have far more issues to be concerned about for life and government in Santa Barbara, but the steadily increasing and open use of noisy, smoggy dirt blowers is a symptom of how people here are caring less and less about each other with no thought about the consequences of offensive behaviour, such as cars speeding, booming "music", littering, stealing market baskets or carts, vehicles blocking sidewalks, and streetsweeping signs installed only where the residents do not fight back. The list can go on and on.

Slow down, Santa Barbara, and use a broom!!

Frankly, a public debate about the lax enforcement of "leaf blowers" and how they represent the demise of civilization would make a far, far more substantive and practical controversy than all the Crocodile Tears about the Light Blue Line project.

The question is, why don't these laws--leafblowing laws, traffic laws and otherwise--get enforced? Is it indifference on the part of law enforcment?...or is it that there simply aren't enough cops to deal with these problems?

I find it hard to believe that in a city where so much wealth abounds that these laws can't be enforced.

I would like Asheigh to drop the matter. I voted for the ban, but now I favor a repeal of the law. Having used them for the past 20 years, I agree both gas and electric blowers are nasty machines. I use my illegal gas blower at the lowest speed possible. I make less noise and disturbance than an electric blower. But I still break this law on a daily basis.

Ashleigh came up behind me one day when I was working up near the Mission. This corner house has over 300 feet of sidewalk and I thought it was safer to use the gas blower than to drag hundreds of feet of extension cord up Garden Street. (Hey David, let's see you go out and sweep 300 feet of sidewalk. . . ) Anyway, I promised Ashleigh that I would stop using the gas blower. For awhile I used the mower to blow the grass clippings back onto the lawn. But that's pretty dangerous. I broke my promise when I saw Mr. Brilliant riding his bike on the same sidewalk that I used to blow. So then I started looking out for him and after the third time I wrote him an email.

"Why should I follow the law regarding blowers when I see you violating the law by riding your bike on the sidewalk? I don't bother calling the cops on you. Even though what you are doing is more dangerous to the public than what I'm doing?"

He responded by saying he had no defense. Just like me. I have no legal defense. I really wish Ashleigh and David P. would never again waste the time of the police on such a petty matter. If any one of my customers asked me to stop, I would. None ever has.

At the same house where I saw Ashleigh, I was putting my blower in the truck when an old station wagon pulled up. A woman got out and asked if I knew "that thing" was illegal. I said yes, and slow spiral began. . .

She marched up to me, arms waving, as she peppered me with questions,

You know that's bad for the environment? "Yes".

You know it's illegal? "Yes".

Well why do you use it??? I felt so little saying, "Because it's faster".

More of a guilt trip followed, until I got in my truck and rolled up the windows, all the while she kept talking. At this point I just drove away.

(Because she was rude to me, I thought the next time I see Ashleigh I'm going to give him a hug. He was nice to me, even though he was saying the same thing.)

That was the first encounter, and there were four more shouting matches until the first week of 2006. She was a block away and we spotted each other at the same time. (think, Ferris Buellar eyeing his sister) I turned off the blower but she drove up, jumped out of the car and said, "This time I'm calling the police!" I said, call the police, I'll be inside the yard mowing the lawn. Sure enough, 20 minutes later a SBPD car with two officers shows up. After talking to her they come and talk to me. I told them I admit to using the gas blower because I've got more than 300 feet of sidewalk to clean, in addition to the property. They were sympathetic, but said the woman insisted on having me cited. I said I was sorry they had to spend their time on this, and I was prepared to suffer the strong arm of the law.

On the afternoon of the hearing I realized the folly of this law. I stood in front of Brian Hill, but the woman never showed up. . . Case dismissed. What a waste! I took a half day off for the first hearing, and more time for the second. I wonder, how much the Court's time is worth? How much time was wasted on this case just because this woman hates gas blowers. Yes, I know, legally she's right, but she ignored her summons to appear, so I go free.

But that's not the end. One week after Angel Linnares was killed on State street, she spotted me again. I saw her pull over as I dashed inside the yard, looking for a place to hide. Thank god there was a children's playhouse in the yard. I ducked inside and stayed there for awhile. And there I stayed, like a little boy hiding from his mommy. I couldn't believe my eyes when I heard footsteps and saw the shoes of and officer walking through the yard!

Honestly, my heart sank when I thought about how many city services were wasted by this woman. Just because she's right, and I'm wrong.

"I do not like some laws, either, but I do not complain when they are enforced when someone makes a complaint."

Really? So selective enforcement of the law is just fine with you? This woman has singled out lowerwestie and is using the law as a club -- that's at least as wrong, morally, as lowerwestie continuing to use a gas blower. If that woman put nearly as much energy into shutting down polluting corporations, or if she got out of her car and walked or biked instead, we would all be better off.

That said -- yes, lowerwestie, you should use a broom, and advertise as a non-gasblower-using gardener.